Ramses Amer compares the diplomatic views and policies of the U.S. with those of China to shed light on the future their interaction. Wide differences exist in their justification for the use of force in inter-state relations; an unlikely but cooperative solution would be for the U.S. to conform more to the UN Charter and principle of non-interference, as China has.

In this premiere episode of a new Chinese Youku series produced by Guancha.cn, Shanghai scholar/entrepreneur Eric X. Li talks with political scientist Francis Fukuyama about his latest book: “Political Order and Political Decay.”

Singapore’s record of rising from the ashes serves as a source of inspiration to China. The similarity of governance between Singapore and modern China has received mixed commentary, including some critical, but Lee Kuan Yew and his successors stood ground and, arguably, have prevailed.

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China’s foreign policy three “no’s” are no expansion, no hegemony, and no alliances. Its foreign policy three “yes’s” are to peace, development, and cooperation. President Xi Jinping has stated over and over again that China will stick to this peaceful development strategy.

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What matters most to the China-U.S. relationship is its overall direction. Throughout the decades since the two sides resumed engagement, this relationship has on the whole been moving in the right direction even though their aims do not always align.

In October 2013, during a visit to Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launching of the New 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, just one month after announcing the New Silk Road Economic Belt, while on a visit to Kazakhstan. These two initiatives, followed in 2014 by the plan to put together the BRICS New Development Bank and China’s establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that Fall, constitute a new paradigm for mankind.

The first Chinese space station outside of its territory will open in Argentina in 2016 – a logical place for a satellite communication station located on the opposite side of the globe as China. Notably, China and Argentina have strengthened bilateral relations over the past few years through increased trade and loans. While the U.S. has historically remained out of favor, this development has alerted some U.S. officials.

The Chinese central bank just announced that it will cut interest rates, but the market is more concerned about whether this means China is officially in the sweeping global game of quantitative easing. The Chinese central bank is now in a monetary policy dilemma: It is neither willing to embark on the track of excessive quantitative easing, nor ready to tighten currency policies. Instead, it is returning to neutrality, which doesn’t mean an orientation change in its monetary policies.

China’s new anti-terror laws are in response to changing transnational terrorist networks and are intended to designate agencies responsible for anti-terror activities while defining the obligations of the state, society, enterprises, and individual citizens. U.S. IT companies are concerned that increased security and oversight will affect business operations, but Fu Xiaoqiang reminds that this is not unseen in U.S. law either.

Economic and security structures in the Asia-Pacific region have shown a trend of changes towards the “dual-track structure” between U.S.-led allies and Chinese-led allies. It is imperative for China and the U.S. to optimize strengthen their complementary features, rather than maintain a bipolar and competitive nature, so as to ensure development and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Zhai Kun provides four suggestions to achieve this.

China’s controversial new anti-terrorism law would require foreign companies to install “backdoors” to give authorities remote access to computers and networks, and has been placed under review due to Western concerns. Since China still has to rely on foreign technology in the immediate future, the law might have been used to tell the United States government not to engage in what Beijing called “reckless behavior,” or to further expose U.S. hypocrisy in its own cyber espionage practices.

Despite China’s remarkable growth, the property market still faces the challenges of consolidation, industrial overcapacity, financial risk, deflationary risk, and structural employment issues. In response the government will adjust to the economy’s “new normal” of slower growth, move toward an innovation based economy with more public goods and services, and pursue a proactive fiscal economy and a prudent monetary policy.

The question of Thucydides trap has become a classic in Sino-US relations to explain the rising military securitization. For the past five years China has attempted to develop state-of-the-art A2AD capabilities to secure its periphery, and the U.S. has called for a maritime version of NATO to ensure U.S. conventional offensive advantage over China. Trigkas argues the relevance of Thucydides today in teaching that we must utilize the creative forces of humans towards the Epicurian or the Confucian Good life and not towards supremacy.